Chipping Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina

Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina arizonae. Photographs taken within a residential community in Hereford, Arizona, December 2006. Photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Behrstock, Sierra Vista, Arizona (naturewideimages.com).

Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina passerina. Photographs taken in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, January 2023. Photographs and identification courtesy of Faith Hubsch, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Chipping Sparrow, Spizella passerina arizonae and Spizella passerina passerina, are two of five subspecies of Chipping Sparrow, four of which are found in Mexico. They are a member of the Passerellidae Family of New World Sparrows, which has one hundred thirty-two members placed in thirty genera, and one of six global species of the Spizella Genus. Their common name stems from the sharp “chip” call that they make throughout the day as they forage and interact with others. They are known in Mexico as chingolo cejiblanco.

The Chipping Sparrow is small in stature and known as a songbird. Males and female similar in appearance with the males being slightly larger than the females. They have a rufous to chestnut brown crown, a distinct white superciliary line, black lores and eye-stripe, a gray rump, an unstreaked gray breast, and flanks blending into a dull white belly. While breeding the female have a brood patch and the males a cloacal protuberance during breeding season. Their upper mandible is olive brown, and the lower mandible is salmon colored, their iris is dusky brown, and their legs and feet are salmon.

The Chipping Sparrow is found in open woodlands, the boarders of forest openings, edges of lakes and rivers and brushy, weedy field at elevations up to 4,500 m (14,800 feet). They forage in brushy open areas. They are active forages of seeds of grasses and various annual plants supplemented with small fruits and insects when breeding. The males are known for copulating with several different females. They have life spans of up to ten years. The Chipping Sparrow is poorly studied and very little about their biology and behavior patterns has been documented.

The Chipping Sparrow is found throughout Mexico with the exception that they ae absent from the Yucatán Peninsula. The arizonae subspecies is found in Baja California, northwest Sonora, southwest Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila south to Baja California Sur and through the highlands south to Oaxaca. The passerina subspecies is found in Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. They are partial migrants with the northern subspecies moving to southern locations for wintering and the southern subspecies being year-round residents.

From a conservation perspective the Shipping Sparrow is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are found in gardens and towns and their populations have expanded which is attributed to human development.